On September 1, 2021, Geoffrey Stone, president of the International Association of Fire Fighters, Local 319, sent a request for information to Patrick Hopkins, a business administrator for the City of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. On behalf of the Union, which represented the City’s 74 fire bureau employees, Stone requested “all correspondence (via text, email, letter or otherwise) between the fire chief and individual bargaining unit members from January 1, 2021, to present.” Hopkins did not respond, so on September 14, Stone repeated his request, adding that he would give the City until September 24, 2021, or “advise our lawyer to file an unfair labor practice with the state labor relations board.”
Hopkins responded the same day and denied the request as overly broad, “If you care to clarify specifically what documents you are asking about, please do so and then we can respond accordingly.” In response, Stone clarified that if Hopkins was denying the request, then he would be filing an unfair labor practice charge. On September 21, the Union filed the charge, asserting that “the City violated the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Act because the information requested was ‘necessary and relevant to the enforcement of the collective bargaining agreement, and to monitor compliance with said agreement.’”
Several months later, prior to adjudication of the ULP, Stone once again reached out to Hopkins, writing, “Since my original request was too overly broad, I’ve been advised to narrow it down some by our lawyer. So, I am asking again for all correspondence between the fire chief and battalion chiefs from January 1, 2021, til present.” Hopkins responded that the request remained overly broad, and that Stone was “not entitled to see or be copied on every communication between the fire chief and the battalion chiefs. If you are able to clarify specifically what documents you are seeking and how they are relevant to fulfilling the union’s bargaining duties, please do so and we can respond accordingly.” Stone disagreed with Hopkins’ assessment of the request, reasoning that the Union had already narrowed the scope of its request.
In June 2022, the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board’s hearing examiner issued a proposed decision and order holding that the City violated Section 6(1)(a) and (e) of the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Act and what is known as the Policemen and Firemen Collective Bargaining Act (Act 111). The proposed order directed the City to provide the requested information. The hearing examiner reasoned that it “cannot be seriously disputed” that the Union’s request pertained to the working conditions of bargaining unit members and that “the information must be deemed presumptively relevant under the Board’s caselaw.” The hearing examiner also found that the City did not make a reasonable attempt to accommodate the Union’s request.
The Labor Board adopted the hearing examiner’s decision, and the City appealed to the Commonwealth Court.
The Court reversed the Board’s order, holding that the Union’s initial request for all written communications between the Chief and all 74 bargaining unit members over a nine-month period was overbroad, “so broad that it is impossible to say that it related to mandatory subjects of bargaining,” which is the threshold question for assessing the presumptive relevance of the Union’s request. The second request, limited to “all correspondence” between the City’s fire chief and battalion chiefs, was similarly deficient. The Court focused on the fact that the Union made only a bare assertion of need in that request, rather than try to explain the relevance of the information to the Union’s bargaining duties.
The Court also held that the Board erred in holding that the City refused to bargain with the Union. The City’s requests for clarification of the requests for information were not a “flat refusal,” as the Board found, but “a willingness to ‘respond accordingly.’ While willing to produce the relevant documents, the City needed to know what documents would, in fact, be responsive to the Union’s request and whether they were the kind of documents to which the Union was even entitled.”
City of Lancaster v. Pennsylvania Lab. Rels. Bd., 309 A.3d 178 (Pa. Commw. Ct., 2024).